Perfect Bodies Summer 1999

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(Westminster/John Knox Press, 1999), 111 pp.

The Impending millennium, New Testament scholar N. T. Wright reminds us, exists only because of an act of subversion by a fifth-century Scythian monk named Dionysius. He proposed a new calendar, dating it from the coming of Jesus rather than the birth of the Roman emperor Diocletian. In this timely and readable little book, Wright takes Dionysius's cue and makes a case for reclaiming the millennium as a Christian festival.

"To celebrate the Millennium with any integrity … must of necessity be to celebrate the good news that Jesus of Nazareth is Lord of the world." Amidst alarmist apocalypticism and frenetic party preparations. The Millennium Myth is a refreshing example of Christian thought in action.

Wright has a gift for conversational exposition of abstruse topics, and in this book he turns his attention to a brief account of postmodernism, one of the more potent ideologies of the age. Wright's lucid summary of postmodernism will not surprise most RQ readers: In the postmodern world, there is no such thing as reality except that which we construct for ourselves, and all " metanarratives," or overarching stories, are suspect because they are all regarded as power games. Wright sees no intrinsic threat in this worldview: the gospel, on the contrary, offers hope to a postmodern world because it is a story of love. The story of Jesus is "not a powerplay; it is the healing, rescuing metanarrative. To live within this story is to discover life and hope, new possibilities, new humanness, new openness to God, to other humans, to oneself, to God's future."

A lot of ink has been spilled on postmodernism, but Wright goes beyond theory to specifics. He joins a worldwide chorus of ...

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